Optical receivers have been based on multiple separate chips, due to the corresponding different technologies used on the various components. For example, a photodiode (PD) or other photodetector may be implemented using an expensive indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) or gallium arsenide (GaAs) process, in contrast to other receiver components (transimpedance amplifier (TIA), limiting amplifier (LA), and other circuits) that may be fabricated using complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) or bipolar junction transistor CMOS (BiCMOS) processes. Thus, CMOS circuits and optical chips used in optical receivers often are based on completely different process and scale. Such separate circuits/chips/dies can be wire-bonded or flip-chip bonded to each other for use in high-speed optical signal detection and recovery. However, such coupling together of the separate circuits by bonding or other schemes can limit the operational speed of the optical receiver, and deteriorate its sensitivity and energy efficiency.